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I've heard similar problems from other people. I've been buying Ikea furniture almost my entire life and I've never experienced this problem. Naturally I've had Ikea products wear and tear, but not generally faster than products from other companies in comparable price ranges.

Most of our stuff is from Ikea. There's a 2 tables, 1 desk and 4 chairs in our apartment not from Ikea.

Nothing broke so far (3 years in). Our main sofa is a little bent in the middle, but not obviously so. I only noticed because before out vacuum cleaner's head could just fit underneath the sofa, and now only fits under at the far sides.

The quality is not great. Most of their furniture is pressed wood, and is easily damaged. But in their price segment, I think they do pretty well.

I have a black leather couch I bought from Ikea more than 10 years ago (~$1000). To this day, its in my living/family room. Its survived 3+ moves, I've slept on it for months at a time, I've had friends have a lot of sex on it while I was out of town, etc. It has been through a lot of abuse, but still looks like new.

I only buy Ikea furniture now.

I agree.

I feel like Ikea's main innovation was to integrate programmed obsolescence in tasteful furniture. Before I knew Ikea, buying a new bookshelf every couple years was foreign to me. Now, I have to take into consideration that any furniture I get there might break or bend under normal use, that even a wok might lose its non-stick surface after only a few uses, and many more reasons for my older relatives to make fun of me and my shiny purchases.

I recently graduated from Ikea though, and most of the furniture in my apartment is also custom built. Best decision I took in the last couple of years (this, and learning Haskell)

Don't use non-stick woks ;) They are supposed to be bare steel seasoned like cast-iron pans.

It's fine for what it is and would only buy for cheap office furniture.

My last home had an IKEA kitchen that was a little over 10 years old with IKEA cabinets and flooring and what not. It was garbage. Cabinets surrounding the sink base had turned into deteriorated cardboard from contact with water. The flooring, wood laminate, felt like walking on plastic. The cabinets sat on plastic stilts. The whole thing was cheap and lousy.

I tore that all out before I moved in a stick of furniture.

I did salvage some for garage shelving.

I recently left a 7 year old Ikea cabinets. Was in perfect shape, far better than the previous places I'd lived (the hardware they put on that stuff is fantastic). The countertop wasn't Ikea and the flooring was an engineered hardwood, also not Ikea.

Still I'd put those cabinets in my home again in a heartbeat.

Interesting. I live in Europe, my house is entirely filled with IKEA furniture.

So is my the house of my closest family members. Not a single problem so far and we have been using those things since the nineties.

We buy probably the most expensive things in IKEA though (which is cheap compared to other places). If we buy a lamp, we buy the best one with LED lights and so on. So probably it has something to do with that.

In my experience, any general assessment of the quality of Ikea furniture isn't really useful, because it spans a wider gamut than almost any other furniture retailer.

I've spent $40 on a chest of drawers that, while performing better than a $40 chest of drawers from Target, wasn't really all that great. I've also spent $150 on a different chest of drawers that has moved with me and still looks and feels as good as the day it was assembled. There's a rough you-get-what-you-pay-for with Ikea, but even that isn't a hard and fast rule: I bought the lowest-end sofa (since discontinued) back in 2005, and it's probably lasted longer than the next step up would have simply because it's a no-compromise wood-armed design rather than a some-compromises full-upholstery design.

There's also the Ikea "Stockholm" class, which tends to be priced more like Crate & Barrel, but I can't speak to its quality from experience.

I don't like IKEA at all.

1. I don't like things that break.

Perhaps the price/performance ratio is not too bad but overall, the quality is lacking. Some have said their IKEA furniture has lasted for decades, well this is nothing special, really. Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it. It always amazes me how many people are brainwashed with planned obsolescence.

2. Even if the quality was fine, I don't like the design.

Whenever I go to IKEA I feel some form of a culture shock. Everything looks so cold... so Scandinavian. I live in the Mediterranean and the furniture we are used to looks way different than what IKEA sell.

> * Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it.*

That's great if you're well-off or one of your ancestors was. If you're trying to furnish an apartment on a tight budget, you are not going to get 100-year-old handcrafted hardwood no matter where you shop. You're basically saying "cheap furniture sucks because it's not as good as expensive furniture," which is obviously true but not really a useful observation.

What I meant to say was that the furniture itself is a hundred years old. All furniture was expensive back then but it was amortised long time ago.

My point is that IMHO some products are not worth having at all.

One time I bought a cheap desk at IKEA, a plain board with stainless steel legs. It soon started bothering me that placing a big pile of books on it would make it bend and I was then afraid to climb on top of it to clean the window, I was not sure it could support my weight. A few months later I had some guests who placed some heavy climbing equipment on it and managed to damage it, now the desk has a 5cm hole in the middle.

In retrospect, to me such desk is wasted money even if priced at 5$.

I ended up going to a local store and buying a proper desk for 4 times the price. It looks really nice and is very strong and it can be repaired if it ever gets damaged. Now, I could have spent the same money for a better quality desk in IKEA but in this price range there are other stores that can match the quality and even offer better looks (this is subjective - I'm not a fan of IKEA style).

Also I still have 5 CFL bulbs from IKEA which I will never use. They were cheap but I did not expect they could be this bad.